


Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right...

by Ionaonie



Category: Good Wife (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:23:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ionaonie/pseuds/Ionaonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being caught in the middle of high-powered politics is never easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meridian_rose (meridianrose)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meridianrose/gifts).



> Huge amount of thanks to my betas, who I will name once everything goes public.

_‘I just. I know Alicia and I, we’ve had our differences. At first I thought the best thing was just to let it go, but I think it’s better to explain things.’_

 _‘And you know Alicia from..?’_

 _‘Lockhart Gardner.’_

 

Pushing back the chair, Cary stood, buttoning up his jacket.

Peter rose as well, reaching across the desk to shake his hand. ‘It was good to meet you, Cary.’

When he’d had walked in, Florrick had obviously had no idea who he was, being utterly dismissive of him until Cary had brought up knowing Alicia; even then he had only seemed truly interested when Lockhart Gardner was mentioned. Cary didn’t quite know how to take the fact that Peter hadn’t known who he was. His rivalry with Alicia had been such a big deal to Cary that year, yet Alicia had either never told her husband about it or he had forgotten. Both kind of stung.

‘And you too, Mr Florrick.’ Cary was prepared to admit that this wasn’t an outcome he’d imagined once he’d decided to confront the situation.. It had seemed better than standing around, waiting to be fired. Instead, he appeared to have what he wanted; his position guaranteed and, apparently, the ear of the new State’s Attorney.

He may not be entirely sure what Florrick was going to use him for exactly, but Cary had no problem becoming indispensable to the new State’s Attorney. When Florrick moved on to his next office - and he would be moving on. That was why people became State’s Attorney - it would be more than a little useful to his career to be counted as a cohort of Peter Florrick. It would certainly give him a major advantage over all the idiots vying for the few corporate jobs available.

Florrick smiled at him, all charm and warmth, but it didn't quite reach his eyes, and Cary knew that the ones who who seemed the most sincere were the ones you had to watch out for. He had no doubt that Florrick was already plotting...something. There weren’t many people who could go from state’s attorney to jail to state’s attorney in less than two years. Cary was profoundly grateful that he was no enemy of Florrick’s. Being counted as a trusted ally would be quite good, though.

‘I look forward to working with you.’

It was such an innocuous statement, but the way he said it... the new State’s Attorney seemed dangerous tonight. He’d just won a highly contested election and instead of being happy he seemed pensive. Childs had never unnerved Cary the way Florrick had in the last hour. With Childs Cary had known who he was dealing with. Florrick was far more of an enigma. Childs had always been the high school bully, thinking he was far cleverer than he really was, but Peter had an air of the Machiavellian about him.

Childs - he was a known quantity. There was an understanding that Cary was going to use him as much as Childs was going to use Cary. But Cary just wasn’t sure what Florrick was thinking. He suspected, but while Childs had told him upfront what was expected of him, Florrick was playing his cards close to his chest. After being invited to sit, Cary had half expected to be grilled about Lockhart Gardner, and Will in particular. That hadn’t happened. Instead they had talked for nearly an hour about what needed to change at the State’s Attorney’s Office; how it could be run more efficiently and the kind of cases that should be given priority.

Cary was fairly certain that instead of settling down, the States Attorney’s office was about to undergo a whole new shake-up.

‘Well, that was weird,’ Cary muttered to himself as the door to the Florrick campaign closed behind him.

But then, Matan had said that the point was to survive and surviving he was. Even if he was most likely setting himself up for an even more complicated life.

 

\-------

 _‘Oh. Peter Florrick wants you?’_

 _‘Yeah. Isn’t that odd? I would have thought that my competition with his wife would have made me persona non grata.’_

 _‘Yeah, I would have thought so too.’_

 _‘He doesn’t seem to care that Alicia and I aren’t on the best of terms. Read into that what you will.’_

 

He watched Kalinda’s expression turn thoughtful, as if she too was trying to work out what Florrick’s angle here was.

Cary was reading into it quite a lot himself. It seemed like too much of a coincidence for Peter Florrick to be intrigued by Cary’s time at Lockhart Gardner at a time where Cary was keeping secrets for Kalinda.

Cary hadn’t seen Andrew for a couple of days so he had no idea if his friend had spoken to Alicia or what he might have said to her. All that needed to happen was for Andrew to say one thing and Alicia would connect the dots. If Alicia was about to find out about another of her husband’s infidelities, then it seemed like the perfect time for Peter to try and find dirt of his own, although Cary doubted he was going to find any there.

At Lockhart Gardner, Cary had always felt as though he were competing more against Alicia’s friendship with Will than he was with Alicia. He still felt as though Alicia had had an unfair advantage - one he couldn’t even begin to match - but he regretted accusing Alicia of sleeping with Will. He - and practically every other lawyer in Cook County - believed there was something between them but unlike most he didn’t think anything had happened. He remembered when Duke Brisco had accused them of having a torrid affair and he’d known back then that it was ridiculous enough to tease her about it with Kalinda.

What Cary wanted was Kalinda’s take on what Peter was thinking; if Cary was being overly paranoid (he doubted it) or if Peter did have an ulterior motive (almost certainly). Kalinda had a way of seeing the truth of situations so much more clearly than anyone else he knew. It was often just a question of whether or not she was willing to share her knowledge.

No matter the circumstances of his employment he was going to do his job to the best of his ability. It would just be nice to know if he should be more suspicious, or less, and Kalinda would tell him truthfully. Or, more accurately, give him that look that suggested Cary was an idiot if he didn’t already know the answer.

Watching her far off expression, he could see though, that today wasn’t the time to try and appeal to her better nature.

Kalinda was still sat there, clearly caught up in her own thoughts. Before the appearance of Blake Calamar, Cary had so rarely seen Kalinda anything less than prepared for everything. Seeing her shaken and out of sorts was still very strange.

When he’d been at Lockhart Gardner, she’d been so in control of her emotions and surroundings - even after becoming friends with Alicia and thawing somewhat towards him - that seeing her becoming unstuck felt like reality collapsing. Even with Blake, Kalinda kept her cool but it was the prospect of losing her friendship with Alicia that scared Kalinda. And today she seemed particularly out of sorts, like a shade of her normal self.

He wondered if something had happened between her and Alicia but he knew better than to ask. She would just deflect and change the subject.

‘Kalinda?’

She looked up at him, blinking slowly as though she had forgotten he was there and was surprised to see him. ‘I, uh, I better get going.’ She stood up, slipping her notebook into her pocket. ‘Congratulations on keeping your job.’

Predictably he couldn’t tell if she was being sincere so he settled for shrugging. ‘Yeah.’

As Kalinda reached the door Cary suddenly sat up straighter. ‘Hey, Kalinda?’

Kalinda turned back to him, her hand hovering above the handle, a wary look on her face.

‘Are you okay?’

She offered him an unconvincing smile. ‘Of course I am.’ And before Cary could call her on it, she opened the door and slipped out, leaving him staring after her.

Naturally.

 

\-------

 _‘Talked to Alicia? Told her you slept with Peter?’_

 _‘You should read the file, Cary.’_

 _‘So you’re freezing me out because you talked to Alicia?’_

 _‘I’m not freezing you out.’_

 

Picking up the file, Cary glared after Kalinda as she disappeared though the door. He pened the file and started flicking through it. After a few minutes of staring unseeingly at the words in front of him, he closed the file, throwing it on top of the other files on his desk and in the privacy of his own office, he took a deep, calming breath and rubbed a hand over his face.

He glanced at the door and sighed. What was it about Kalinda that turned him in knots? He rolled his eyes at himself. He knew what it was; he liked her and wanted to figure her out. And he had thought that they were getting somewhere over the last few months.

She was freezing him out. He knew she was freezing him out. She knew it and he knew it. And a part of him was angry about it. Bitter. He really had no stake in protecting Alicia from the cold, hard truth about Peter, and yet he’d put his career on the line to help Kalinda try and protect her friendship with Alicia.

If Childs had found out that Cary was keeping something secret that could have been used to bring down Peter he wouldn’t have hesitated in firing Cary’s ass. And she was now acting like he hadn’t done anything.

He’d had information and in a place like Cook County, information was power. And yet, Cary hadn’t used that information because it would have hurt Kalinda. It would still hurt Kalinda. And even now, after he’d stopped being useful to her, Cary knew he’d never tell anyone what he knew about Kalinda and Peter. With everything that Blake had dragged up he had wanted to prove to her that she could trust him. It was why he’d asked so few questions . As curious as he’d been, she had needed to know that he wasn’t going to press her for information.

So pushing Kalinda like that when she was so obviously shutting down had been stupid but he’d wanted to know what was going on and it wasn’t like he could ask Alicia or Peter. That way led, well, to actually being fired.

Drumming his fingers on the desk, Cary glanced down at his empty coffee mug, suddenly really needing a hit of caffeine. Though probably not enough time to figure out Kalinda or where he stood in the complicated web she’d managed to weave. The part of Cary that didn’t feel bitter wasn’t surprised that Kalinda was freezing him out. He’d been watching her since the first case they’d worked together at Lockhart Gardner and he’d been trying to figure her out ever since they had hit the street during the Wilcox case. She had closed down every attempt he’d made to get to know her. Looking back, he now knew that he’d been far too pushy. It was one of the reasons he believed that Kalinda and Alicia had become such fast friends so quickly. They had both needed someone but neither of them were able to open up about their lives and in each other they found a person who understood that.

It made how Alicia had frozen Kalinda out in court so much more poignant. The way Alicia had essentially blanked Kalinda’s arrival and how Kalinda had nearly faltered made Cary wonder if Alicia had finally found out about the affair. Cary hoped that Kalinda had been the one to tell her, but he very much doubted it.

He understood that Kalinda didn’t ‘do’ friends. The friendship she’d developed with Alicia had been an aberration and now that it appeared broken, Kalinda was trying to protect herself. Cary got that, he really did. But, at the same time, he felt as though he’d earned some trust. It pissed him off that Alicia - without even being aware of it - had managed to screw with Cary’s life again. He’d almost feel better about it if she was doing it on purpose.

The really messed up thing was that Cary had actually liked Alicia. Still liked her, really. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said he hadn’t wanted her to lose. He just hadn’t wanted her to win over him. He enjoyed working with her. She challenged him to do better and he had done his best work on cases where Alicia and he worked together. In much the same way now, when he was up against Alicia in court he had to up his game because she always had something up her sleeve. Collaborating on the Justin Rose case had been truly satisfying and had been a big part of why he’d tried going back to Lockhart Gardner when he’d been convinced his time at the State’s Attorney’s office was up.

But thanks to Alicia he’d lost the position at Lockhart Gardner and now Kalinda was closing down and backing away from him because she was determined to protect herself from anymore pain. And he knew there was nothing he could do about it. If he had wanted to get through to her, he should never have let her leave his office while they had been talking about the Stephanie Engler civil case. Since then she’d had time to re-establish her boundaries and getting past them would be nearly impossible.

Resisting the urge to beat his head against the desk he reached forward and retrieved the file. If it really proved that Angela Gothard had killed Judge Allerby then losing his swansong case was really going to piss off Childs, not that Cary really cared how he felt. Regardless of what he’d said to Diane and Kalinda, Cary hadn’t been so convinced that the investigation hadn’t been botched. He was optimistic that with Childs and his agenda gone that the number of cases he won would increase.

Maybe, just maybe with Florrick becoming States Attorney, Cary could learn how to say no to Kalinda and the number of cases he won against Lockhart Gardner could increase. That would be something.


End file.
